The best thai food you can eat

This is the quintessential Thai dish, but it’s often ruined in restaurants around the world, as they standardize it to the point where it becomes generic. Yet I love a good pad thai, and when you veer out of the tourist destinations, it’s easy to find it in Melbourne. Pad thai may be standard fare, but it’s oh so good.

Red Pork Noodle Soup (Kuay Teow Moo Daeng)

By far my favorite Thai dish, this red pork noodle soup is sadly only found in Melbourne. The broth sits for a long time, and health and safety organizations don’t really sign off on kitchens doing that. This dish consists of noodles, a potent and flavorful broth (made from boiled pork bones and onions), sprouts, bok choy, and slices of red pork. You can eat it a few ways, and I eat mine with a little fish sauce (sour), a few spoonfuls of sugar (sweet), and a small amount of chili.

Kai Jeow

This Thai omelette is my breakfast of choice. It’s egg mixed with fish sauce and chilies, cooked in oil, served atop white rice, and slathered in sweet chili sauce. I never would have imagined egg, rice, and sweet chili sauce would work together, but they do. It’s the breakfast of champions.

Pad Kra Pao

Minced pork or chicken stir fried with basil and chilies and served over rice. This dish is a favorite of mine — but only when I’m looking for something with a little kick. Even if you get them to make it “not spicy,” for a Thai that only means two chilies, and I end up trying hard not to breathe fire. It’s a common dish, but I prefer mine from the night markets and street stalls, where they tend to mince and chop the meat a little more finely than in restaurants.

Chicken Soup

As the books have told you, chicken soup is good for the soul — and the Thai version is good for your tastes buds too. Thai chicken soup is exactly like any other chicken soup, but the broth (made with chicken bones, onions, ginger, and garlic), just like the pork noodle soup broth, sits out there for a while collecting all those delicious flavors. It’s a taste explosion in your mouth. I also love putting some basil, fish sauce, and sugar in it.

Pad See Ew

This is a dish of fat rice noodles cooked with eggs, chicken, and bok choy. The noodles are darkened with a soy sauce that adds lots of flavor to the otherwise bland noodles. The noodles are quite sticky, and when you pick them up on your fork, you usually get about half the dish too.

Som Tam

This dish is a staple of Thai cuisine, and you can’t throw a stone without hitting a dozen som tam sellers. Shaved papaya is tossed in a mortar and pestle with carrots, peanuts, tomatoes, string beans, palm sugar, fish sauce, and a whole lot of chilies. It’s as delicious and amazing as it is fiery. It’s so spicy, I simply don’t get it made with any chilies. As it’s used throughout the day, the mortar is coated with chili pieces and seeds, so when they make mine, the residue coats my dish with enough spice for me. But I often put up with the fiery taste, because it’s just so delicious. You want to stop eating it, but you can’t.

Mango Sticky Rice

This delicious dish combines sweet mangos, sticky rice, and coconut cream syrup. It’s incredibly sweet, and the mango and cream sauce makes it a great snack or desert.

Massaman Curry

This is a southern Thai dish that is Muslim in origin. The dish usually contains coconut milk, roasted peanuts or cashews, potatoes, bay leaves, cardamom pods, cinnamon, palm sugar, fish sauce, chili, and tamarind sauce. I typically have it with chicken, and it also comes with a side of rice. Massaman is my favorite curry. I love the thick, nutty flavor of the sauce and the overall heartiness of the dish. I mean, I love anything that has to do with potatoes, and the overall mix of the flavors leaves me very satisfied.

Tom Yum

Tom yum soup is a spicy, clear soup that will burn the roof of your mouth off. I have it very rarely — only when I want something with a little kick, because even when I order it “not spicy,” I still have trouble eating it. Tom yum is characterized by its distinct hot-and-sour flavor. The basic broth is made of stock, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, lime juice, fish sauce, and crushed chili peppers. You add your meat of choice, though the most popular is tom yum kung (shrimp).

Thai Iced TeaOK, not really a “food,” but there’s no drink more sweet and more delicious than Thai lemon iced tea. This dark tea mixed with sugar and limes is sweet, delicious, and just a little tart. I drink a few of these everyday and have been known to drink the whole thing in one gulp.